STATE OF POWER 2017

White Supremacy as Cultural Cannibalism

Gathoni Blessol

The universal is a fantasy. But we are captive to a sensibility that defines the universal, still, as white. – Claudia Rankine

Racism is a blight on the human conscience. The idea that any people can be inferior to another, to the point where those who consider themselves superior define and treat the rest as subhuman, denies the humanity even of those who elevate themselves to the status of ‘gods’. – Nelson Mandela

There is a lens that is largely being ignored and in most cases simply eclipsed in the current attempts to imagine post-capitalist futures. This missing lens signals an evasion of the fact that capitalism is born of white supremacist thinking and domination. In other words, capitalism is inherently anti-black, and relies on the erasure of black lives and futures.

The failure to see this anti-black systemic underpinning of our world is based first on a lack of meaningful engagement with the origins of capitalism in the project of Empire, which perpetuates the flawed assumption that humanness is an uncontested concept.

And second, on the continued validation of ‘being human’ as the proximity to whiteness and (secondarily) to capital – an existence that is structured by dominance, greed and the need for constant accumulation. As different societies across the globe increasingly invest in these white supremacist-based structures and relations, we risk narrowing the potential for nurturing alternative (less annihilating) versions of expressing and being human.

The consolidation of fascist resonances has both reflected and reinforced the minimizing of global citizens’ capacities to relate beyond their own identities and perceptions of being ‘human’.

This realization has shifted my focus as a community worker to re-evaluate the ways in which the category ‘Human’ has been applied across time and space in various legal, economic, cultural and governing systems.

This has provided both a lens through which to think about (African) black lives, and also a mirror to reflect on the interconnectedness and other cosmic ways of existing as communities.

Organizing within African communities

As a person brought up on the East African coast, I grew up with different understandings of being ‘human’ that strongly resisted the devastating histories of slavery, colonialism, and globalization of white supremacy.

From the early stages of life, despite living in an urban setting that was (and still is) socially, economically and politically isolated, I recall a sense of abundance. This was expressed in creativity, grounding and spirit. It was shared across generations, among peers, in social gatherings, across religious groups and sometimes, on a good day, learning spaces.

This sense of abundance allowed me, periodically, to decipher the harsh realities of socio-political and economic conditions. It became a way of seeing and of being. It was a constant ‘call’ – to remain humbled and respectful – to all life; always to remember, share, and seek to change existing narratives, in both the present and the future.

This sense of abundance allowed me, periodically, to decipher the harsh realities of socio-political and economic conditions. It became a way of seeing and of being.

In principle, it offered avenues to bridge existing gaps within individual and communal ties, and effectively to transform present responsibilities into future possibilities.

Therefore, in my understanding, community organizing became a space for the creation and informing of collective existence, consciousness, responsibility, and relationships based on a different set of values than those embedded in contemporary modes of capitalism.

Today, the state, in protecting capital, is invested in undermining the extent to which communities, when organized, are powerful and effect change. As a result communities have to push back against the erasure of their role in shaping different cultures, and reaffirm capacities to build, grow and transform our existences, spaces and systems of cohesion.

Communities have a key role in ensuring the right to life and protection of resources – acting as a site of persistence and resistance, as well as a space of continuity to the narratives of a people. They are a place to understand individual–collective responsibility and how it relates to the larger eco-system – the Earth and all life.

Black women’s organizing

These roles came together importantly for me in November 2015, when I joined the Black Women’s March in Brasilia. This was a historic global gathering that brought together diverse, transnational, intergenerational, intersectional black women’s struggles and narratives.

Initially the march had been prompted by a bill passed in a commission of the lower chamber that sought to limit access to morning-after pills and information on abortion for rape victims. As sisters from various struggles, our presence was to express our solidarity with women and feminist organizers from Brazil.

In the conversations leading up to the march, this assemblage – comprising community organizers, activists, scholars, spiritual healers and artists – held deep dialogues, where women shared experiences, tactics and strategies that they had used within their movements and other allied groups.

For the majority of participants, who worked within local and national contexts, it became a genuine space to expand consciousness and understand different social justice organizing backgrounds. It brought forth powerful and diverse stories and examples of black women’s resistance, solidarities and blueprints.

The dialogues also enabled us to reflect on the historical and ongoing projects of Empire, across Africa, Latin and North America. These reflections exposed the colonial underpinnings of white-supremacist capitalist, systems- logic and ways of being- that were directly or indirectly exercising violence, silencing, commodifying, overexploiting and killing Afro Brazilian, African American and African populations.

This essay is therefore a ‘coming together’ of these narratives and my own engagements with social justice communities that are organizing in the context of a general sense of disjuncture in our present societies, and with a desire to create alternative spaces that articulate and aim to shift heinous injustices and unfreedoms within the current white-supremacist imperial systems.

African (black) peoples’ narratives and struggles

During the discussions in Brazil, the common denominator in the experiences of extreme violence and criminalization – whether expressed by community organizers of the favelas in Brazil, domestic workers in Ethiopia, the poor urban youth in Kenya or black communities in the US – was being black and unwanted in neoliberal governing systems.

These experiences stem from pervasive cultural and political notions (and realities) that black bodies can be commodified and consumed, and when of no use killed. These notions have played a fundamental part in re-formulating systems that dehumanize and subjugate people of African descent.

For 400 years, European societies relied on the ownership of African peoples as slaves in order to expand their own economies. And this did not change until early 19th century when there was a shift in the priority and planning of economic projects – not of core values and systems – and the need to capture and enslave people gave way to other methods for the physical expansion of Empire and the global accumulation of power, known as colonialism.

These experiences [of extreme violence and criminalization] stem from pervasive cultural and political notions (and realities) that black bodies can be commodified and consumed, and when of no use killed.

These modes of accumulation were embedded and became ‘standard practice’ in the modern administrative structures of African colonies, imported by explorers, missionaries, non-government organizations (NGOs) and administrative powers.

As these colonies became ‘independent’ nations and assumed control of the ‘human governing systems’ from the colonial masters, these socio-economic and cultural systems – which considered African (black) lives as disposable – remained.

(Non)-choice: assimilation or disposability

One of the conditions in which young black people living in the context of capitalism find themselves is that of (non)-choice. This comes down in the end to the (non)-choice between assimilation into capitalism or, if one ‘refuses’ assimilation, disposability.

We should understand that assimilation does bring benefits to some. For instance, we see black elites who assimilate and benefit, but the majority of black people are assimilated as labour to be consumed. Disposability functions, for example, through criminalization of black, usually poor, youths, often resulting in their imprisonment or death.

One of the conditions in which young black people ... find themselves is that of the (non)-choice between assimilation into capitalism or, if one ‘refuses’ assimilation, disposability.

One of the key instruments for this system of non-choice has been the merging of market and state interests. The market embodies corporate interests that spread colonial economies and maintain imperial values.

The state has become the means through which this is applied, seeing its principal role as ‘safeguarding’ economic interests rather than the people. The effects of such relations have been predictable, and have resulted in systemic controls that are violent and silence the autonomy and voices of the majority of people.

This market–state power structure has employed fascist understandings of what it is ‘to be human’, defining economically marginalized populations as ‘other’ in order either to dispossess them or to exploit their labour and resources.

Spatial segregation [whether in Rio de Janeiro or South Africa] is a form through which anti-blackness reproduces itself.

Spatial isolation allows the other modes of anti-blackness discussed here – criminalization and erasure – to remain invincible. Separated from the shiny spaces of capitalism, it enables those who benefit from anti-black capitalism to claim ignorance about its violent other side. But the realities of this violence are becoming ever more difficult to ignore.

#BlackLivesMatter is the most conspicuous example of movements exposing the persistent ways in which black lives have been made to ‘unmatter’. And it has resonated with (African) black communities across the world. #BLM emerged as a response to the overt violence of the state’s armed forces against black people, but has opened up conversations about the multiple ways in which the state renders black lives precarious.

It is an example of how anti-blackness, Islamophobia and ethno-nationalism come together in the service of capital and Empire and end up creating a new ‘non-white’ Other.

Assimilation: the ‘Africa rising narrative’

While we might acknowledge the crucial interlinking of racism and capitalism in cases where the state wields brute force against black communities, we must be equally aware of it in its softer forms. If not, we might see the shift from narratives of the ‘dark continent’ to those of ‘Africa rising’ as progress. One might even assume that the ‘segregation, criminalization, erasure’ described above can be mitigated through development.

The chants of ‘Africa rising’ are being sung on a daily basis across the continent. ‘Development’ – it is claimed – means that change has finally arrived and will ‘eradicate poverty’. The substance of the rise is predicated on growing partnership between African economic and political elites and individuals, corporations, institutions and countries interested in wealth extraction. And it is sold as the only option to a people whose bodies and lives are still structured by the after-effects of colonization.

It is a language and practice of assimilation, requiring African states and peoples to let ‘bygones be bygones’, and ‘move on’ from the doings of colonialism (which traumatized both the colonizers and the colonized) in order to maintain good relations that will secure economic growth.

This ‘Africa rising’ frenzy, greased with economic interests and savage developmentalism has allowed the re-possession (or re-colonization) of land and the exploitation of natural resources by various foreign interests and their local proxies.

Or, on the other spectrum, to remember a past history of anti-imperialism as an explanation for why current colonial extractive relations with China should be overlooked. As Quan argues: ‘Rather than a negation, the strategic partnerships between China and Africa exemplifies as yet another iteration of savage developmentalism and anti-democracy. Here, Third World solidarity is used as a particular device employed to masquerade the conducts of modern development.’

This ‘Africa rising’ frenzy, greased with economic interests and savage developmentalism has allowed the re-possession (or re-colonization) of land and the exploitation of natural resources by various foreign interests and their local proxies.

In this case, the colonial interests may no longer walk in the same bodies, but they emulate the same cultures that reinforce anti-black and anti-poor sentiments.

Necessary truths

This pervasiveness of anti-blackness across societies implies that whiteness is not only spread through white people’s bodies but at the level of systems that come to work through various bodies. It a system that functions primarily to benefit white bodies, but also one that has realized its survival depends on the assimilation, to different degrees, of other bodies.

This has engulfed other non-white societies and institutions of ‘power’ across the globe. It has become deeply embedded in most capitalist societies, accumulating reprehensible systemic failures and exposing a spreading cultural sickness.

This monolithic cultural positioning that places being white as superior to other ways of being human requires counter-active ways of being. These ways must take into account the role of white supremacism in the exploitation of African-descended peoples as well as the eradication of entire non-white, societies, wisdoms and cultures.

The negative cultural influences of white supremacy are on trial today.

Struggles everywhere have questioned and are persistent in questioning white-supremacist ‘prescriptions’ of linear identities for the contemporary ‘human being’.

12. Court stops construction of Kenya’s coal power plant. Petitioners from Lamu celebrating the judgment of the National Environment Tribunal, 26 June (Twitter/(@deCOALonize)

Sudan’s Third Revolution

Sudan’s “Third revolution” began in the northern town of Atbara in December 2018. Street protests began after the removal of a wheat subsidy, escalating to sustained civil disobedience for about eight months. The protests led to a major political shift, when President Omar al-Bashir was deposed after thirty years in power.

A Transitional Military Council (TMC) replaced al-Bashir, but protesters held their ground, and in July and August 2019 the TMC and the civilian-led Forces of Freedom and Change alliance (FFC) signed a Political Agreement and a Draft Constitutional Declaration legally defining a planned 39-month phase of transitional state institutions and procedures to return Sudan to civilian democracy.

In August and September 2019, the TMC formally transferred executive power to a mixed military–civilian collective head of state, the Sovereignty Council of Sudan, and to a civilian prime minister (Abdalla Hamdok) and a mostly civilian cabinet, while judicial power was transferred to Nemat Abdullah Khair, Sudan’s first female Chief Justice.

Chilean protests challenge neoliberal state

The 2019 Chilean protests are ongoing. The protests began in Santiago, Chile’s capital, as a coordinated fare evasion campaign by secondary school students protesting increases in metro fares. This led to spontaneous takeovers of the city’s main train stations and eventually to open confrontations with the Chilean Police.

These protests morphed into a nationwide call to address inequality and improve social services. Soon millions were on the streets, forcing President Sebastián Piñera to increase benefits for the poor and disadvantaged,and to start a process of constitutional reform.

On 25 October, over a million people protested against President Piñera, demanding his resignation. Piñera has already canceled some interest payments on student loans, but protesters are demanding more relief for education payments and related debt.

5.5 million women form human chain in Kerala, India

On Jan. 1, 2019, 5.5 million women in the Indian state of Kerala (population 35 million) built a 386-mile human chain, spanning almost the entire state,to bring light to the issues women face in India.

The women gathered and took a vow to “defend the renaissance traditions” of their state, and to work towards women’s empowerment. In particular, they marched for an end to violence and intimidation against women trying to enter Kerala’s Sabarimala temple, a popular Hindu pilgrimage site.

Undoubtedly larger than the historical Women’s March in Washington, D.C. in 2017, this was one of the largest mobilizations in the world for women’s rights.

Algerian protests pave the way towards democracy

These protests, without precedent since the Algerian Civil War, have been peaceful and led the military to insist on president Bouteflika’s immediate resignation, which took place on 2 April 2019. By early May, a significant number of power-brokers close to the deposed administration, including the former president’s younger brother Saïd, had been arrested.

On 1 November, the metro was shut down in Algiers and trains into the city were canceled following a social media campaign calling for demonstrations. Police roadblocks also caused traffic jams. For the 37th weekly Friday protest, which coincided with the celebration of the 65th anniversary of the start of the Algerian War for independence from France, tens of thousands of demonstrators called for all members of the system of power in place to be dismissed and for a radical change in the political system.

There has not been an overhaul of the political regine, and protestors have returned to the streetsafter an election held on 12 December, arguing that the winner Abdelmadjid Tebboune, 74,and the four other candidates were closely linked with the rule of the deposed Mr Bouteflika.

The statement calls on member states to “promote alternatives to conviction and punishment in appropriate cases, including the decriminalization of drug possession for personal use”.

While a number of UN agencies have made similar calls in the past, this CEB statement means it is now the common position for the entire UN family of agencies. Crucially, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime – the lead UN agency on drug policy – has also endorsed the position; finally clarifying their previously ambiguous position on decriminalisation.

The statement also positions drug policy clearly within public health, human rights, and sustainable development agendas. It represents a welcome and significant step towards ‘system wide coherence’ within the UN system on drug policy.

This has been a key call of civil society groups long frustrated by the lack of coherence across the UN and the marginalisation of health, rights and development agendas by UN drug agencies whose historic orientation has been towards punishment, law enforcement and eradication.

The United Kingdom bans fracking

In October, Scotland banned fracking with immediate effect, arguing that it is “incompatible” with tackling the climate change emergency.The Scottish government said the position of “no support” for fracking followed “a comprehensive period of evidence-gathering and consultation” that started in 2013. The decision thus came after six years of deliberations.In November, England also put a halt to fracking in a watershed moment for environmentalists and community activists.

The decision has been welcomed as a “victory for common sense” by green groups and campaigners who have fought for almost a decade against the controversial fossil fuel extraction process.

Same-sex marriage reform in Asia

Taiwan legalized same-sex marriage on 24 May 2019, following a 2017 constitutional court ruling. Despite intense local and regional opposition, Taiwan became the first nation in Asia to permit same-sex marriage.

Thailand seems to be well on its way to becoming the second Asian country, and the first in South-East Asia, to legalize same sex unions.

Court stops construction of Kenya’s coal power plant

Kenyan judges stopped plans to construct the country’s first ever coal-powered plant near the coastal town of Lamu, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Local communities and criticsargued that the plant would have dire economic and health effects.

A tribunal canceled the license issued by the National Environmental Management Authority, arguing that the Authority had failed to conduct a thorough environmental assessment.The tribunal ordered developer Amu Power to undertake a new evaluation. The environmental court also faulted the Chinese-backed power plant for failing to adequately consult the public about the initiative, and cited insufficient and unclear plans for handling and storing toxic coal ash.

The project has drawn protests since its inception, with environmentalists saying coal has no place in a country that already develops most of its energy from hydroelectric and geothermal power. Campaigners have also argued that the plant will devastate the island of Lamu, a major tourist attraction, a UNESCO heritage site, and the oldest and best-preserved example of a Swahili settlement in East Africa.

The ruling was a win for environmental activists and local communities, who for three years argued the coal plant would not only pollute the air but also damage the fragile marine ecosystem and devastate the livelihoods of fishing communities.

While the latest verdict delays the coal plant’s development, it doesn’t put an end to it. Amu Power can still apply for a new license or appeal the decision within the next month. For now, though, local communities are celebrating the win.

Public banks are being embraced across the United States

In October 2019, AB 857 — the grassroots-generated, people-powered Public Banking Act — became law in California. This was the outcome of years of work by the California Public Banking Alliance, which did the work of educating legislators, drafting language, and generating massive statewide public support for the bill.

The bill opens the way for public banks to offer a people-controlled alternative to the private, profit-driven Wall Street banks that have failed to serve the public. It paves the way for a growth in public banking in California, the largest state economy in the largest national economy in the world.

Progressives and conservatives across the United States are pursuing more than twenty-five initiatives for public banks. Thirty of the fitty states have proposed legislation in support of publicly-owned banks, and more than fifty organisations are promoting public banks.

Listen to our podcast on Public Banks to see why this is a big development.

Hong Kong protestors showresilience and creativity in face of repression

Hong Kong has been rocked by pro-democracy, anti-government protests for more than five months now. The protests began in June with one main objective—for the government to withdraw a controversial bill that would have allowed extradition to mainland China. Critics worried Beijing could use the bill to prosecute people for political reasonsunder China’s opaque legal system.

By the time Hong Kong’s leader, Carrie Lam, agreed to withdraw the bill, it was too late to quell the movement, which quickly grew to include five major demands, all of them related to expansion of democratic space.

The protests have also led to big pro-democracy votes in their legislature, and some of the biggest mobilizations for democracy ever seen. The protests are ongoing at the time of writing, but Lam’s capitulation to the first demand has only emboldened protesters to pursue more substantial concessions.

Swiss women strike for gender equality

Hundreds of thousands of Swiss women went on strike to protest gender inequalities on 14 June 2019, precisely 28 years after the historic 1991 women’s strike in Switzerland that pressured the government to implement a constitutional amendment on gender equality. The 1991 strike led to the passage of the Gender Equality Act five years later, giving women legal protections from discrimination and gender bias in the workplace.

The women’s strike – known as Frauenstreik (German) and Grève des Femmes (French) online – consisted of demonstrations in the country’s major municipalities for equal pay, recognition of unpaid care work, and governmental representation.

The Swiss Parliament in Bern honored the strike with a 15-minute break in its business. In Basel, a giant fist was projected onto the Roche pharmaceutical company building. In some cities, protesters changed the names of streets to honor women. The Swiss paper, Le Temps, left sections blank where articles edited or written by women would have run.

While demands for equal pay dominated the strike, marchers also called for better protections against domestic violence and workplace harassment.

School kids and workers lead historic wave of climate actions

As global temperatures heat up, so too do demands for action. 2019 saw movements such as Extinction Rebellion, the Week of Global mobilization at the United Nations, and many other protests worldwide.

In September, youth climate activists across the world went on strike to demand immediate action from policy makers, in what has been described as the biggest protest and mobilization since the Anti-Iraq War marches. They brought the issues of climate and labour together by calling for a global climate strike in September 2019. An historic 7.6 million students, (grand) parents and workers from 185 countries participated. More than 70 trade unions around the world supported the general strike and the number of climate groups demanding just-transitions for fossil fuel workers are steadily increasing.

Investors are significant shareholders if they own over 5% of a company’s shares. The sample of firms here are the largest 205 public and private firms across the world, who have more than $50 billion in 2014 sales.

Public Institutions

An Institution is considered ‘public’ if guided by a public mandate, governed under public law and/or publicly-owned by state authorities or public sector entities.

Quantitative Easing

QE is an unconventional monetary policy aimed to stimulate economic activity. Central banks create new money and use this to buy government and corporate bonds from financial markets.

Top 17 Asset Management Firms

BlackRock, US

Vanguard Group, US

JP Morgan Chase, US

Allianz SE, Germany

UBS, Switzerland

Bank of America Merrill Lynch US

Barclays plc, UK

State Street Global Advisors, US

Fidelity Investments (FMR), US

Bank of New York Mellon, US

AXA Group, France

Capital Group, US

Goldman Sachs Group, US

Credit Suisse, Switzerland

Prudential Financial, US

Morgan Stanley & Co., US

Amundi/Crédit Agricole, France

G30

The Group of Thirty (G30) is a privately funded international group of 30 top financiers, academics and policy makers, whose aim is to influence policy and discourse in international finance and global politics.

Trilateral Commission

The Trilateral Commission is an unofficial (i.e. not officially overseen by governments) organisation where 375 global elites from 40 countries meet to tackle pressing international issues.

Shadow Banking

Shadow banking are financial institutions which lie outside of the formal banking regulatory system despite performing similar functions to banks, such as providing credit. Due to this, they raise and lend money more easily, but with considerably more risk.